


On Fire

by raanve



Category: Arthurian Mythology
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Space, Arthurians in Space, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-19
Updated: 2011-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-22 20:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raanve/pseuds/raanve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a delicate balance between them, and Lanselos rarely realizes when he's in danger of upsetting that balance. (Violence, and plenty of swearing.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Fire

He wakes and she's still with him, tucked up against his side, her head on his shoulder all golden and tousled. Sometimes he thinks she's most beautiful this way – not asleep, necessarily, but when she doesn't feel compelled to think about whether or not anyone's looking at her, whether or not they're looking to see a queen. Lanselos would love her regardless, queen or not, and sometimes... sometimes he wishes she weren't his queen. Wishes she wasn't anything but Gwenore. Wishes they were running through the black together, her flying and smarts and his luck.

He's running his fingers over her hair, which is going every which way, entertaining this fantasy of having his boat back, the two of them living by their wits and skill, when Gwen stirs and says, hazily, “Shit.”

“Mornin' to you, too,” he laughs.

“Don't be a smartass,” she mutters and sits up. “Damn it. Why'd you let me fall asleep?”

Lanselos gives her one of his best grins, “Because you felt so nice. Lie down again, c'mon, the first call ain't even gone off yet.”

Gwenore gives him one of her looks – square and deadpan, the one that says she's his ruttin' boss and he shouldn't try to pull that trick – and that's when he thinks of Athyr. Athyr alone in his quarters while his wife warms his best friend's bed. Lanselos sighs, runs his hands through his hair, and clambers out of bed. “Right. Sorry. Best get ready to go call roll.”

She dresses quickly, pins her hair up, and kisses him before she goes. A real kiss, lingering and as slow as she can reasonably give him – and he's half-tempted to pull her in, press her back into bed. Even after all these years, it's the same warm ache. He wants her so badly, still, that he gets almost dizzy with it. But she draws away, smiles at him, “Good man. Come have supper with us tonight.”

“Yeah,” he says, buttoning his shirt cuffs, “All right.”

Then she slips out the door, and he takes a deep breath, and starts his day.

**

Athyr's waiting for him in the courtyard, wearing that tight smile that makes Lanse's stomach drop, though his tone of voice is steady and mild as ever. “You runnin' late?”

“It look like I'm late?” Lanse claps him lightly on the shoulder, “Roll call ain't for another quarter hour. I'll be up there waitin' for 'em just like always.”

Athyr's smile goes a little warmer. “Figured I ought to come by, show my face. Peace enforcement seems to run pretty smooth these days, but it don't hurt 'em to see me now and then.”

“Says you,” Lanselos laughs. “All right then, you come on and call it for me, save my voice.”

Athyr turns that mild look on him, the one that makes people underestimate him, the one that warms folks up to him. “Wouldn't undermine you.”

“Can't have that.”

 

Lanselos calls roll, delivers morning announcements, congratulates two officers that brought in someone foolish enough to try to rustle cattle out by Vallone and makes an example of one or two others who thought they wouldn't get caught ditching yard duties. (Lanse knows it's boring as hell to be the guy standing out in the heat ringing the bell and watching shift changes, but someone has to do it.) After everyone's dismissed, he turns to Athyr. “You want to come down to the range?”

Athyr shakes his head, “Got some meeting. Sure it'll bore me stupid.”

“You're safe, then,” Lanselos grins. Most of the time, it's like this between them. Easy, friendly. Lanselos is grateful for that, even though that gratitude almost always comes with a tinge of that half-sick guilt that's almost like dread. “Gwen says I’ll be seeing you at supper.”

Athyr glances away, frowns for just a split-second. He probably thinks Lanse doesn't notice, but Lanse always notices; and that was a stupid, thoughtless thing to say, a risky thing.

“Yeah, good,” Athyr gives Lanse's arm a little squeeze, and then he's off across the yard, looking for all the world like he's happy, in his element. Lanse'll just have to get by on that, if he can.

**

Supper turns out to be a lost cause. Lanselos gets called out to the docks to help sort some mess that no one up at the Hall seems to have many details about. Once he gets down there, it's sadly clear that what someone was saying was a mix-up of papers is actually a smuggler who deals in human cargo. On some other rocks that kind of thing might fly, but not on New Britain. You can sell just about anything you like in Camallate's port, but you sure as hell can't sell people.

Lanselos has the three young men they've found in the hold sent up to the Hall to get papers if they want them, or to get clear passage if they'd rather go someplace else – he doubts they've got homes, exactly – and the trafficker he sends to lock-up. He's got a hunch, he tells the man (a grimy, bulky man with false central planet papers, who doesn't even take decent care of his _boat_ ) that King LeGuin is going to want to deal with him personally.

“Count your blessings,” he says, leaning in close. He’s got the man's shirt twisted up in his fist so that it’s nearly choking him, “The Dragon's got a head for mercy.”

 

After that's all settled, Lanselos is restless and not even hungry. He ducks into the first bar he sees, a place he's only been to maybe once or twice, stripping off his peace enforcement armband and shoving it in his pocket. Better if they don't think he's here on the job.

As he hits the bar, trying to flag the bar girl down, he catches the man at the stool closest to him saying, “They call him _the Dragon_ , but that ain't nothin' but a name his ruttin' daddy held.”

Lanse pauses, then flags the bar girl anyway and asks her for one of the cheap, too-hoppy beers that always seem to be just about the only thing worth drinking on this side of the docks.

“They killed him, though,” that's a woman, talking just a little too loud. Lanselos doesn't look over. “His daddy. Snakes ain't dragons, don't know how that got started.”

“Don't hardly matter,” the man says, “He ain't even smart. Not two thoughts in that head, I'd put money on it. He ain't half a king, he's just the pretty boy they put on the cred out here.”

The woman laughs, which only seems to encourage the man. As Lanselos takes a long drink, the man goes on, “He ain't even king of his own bedroom. That woman of his warms every bed up in that Hall, you ask anyone and see if she don't.”

Even as he's saying it, Lanselos is turning toward him – the woman registers it, probably before Lanse himself does, but she doesn't have time to warn anybody. Lanselos has already kicked the barstool out from under the ruttin' _asshole_ who thinks ain't anyone going to mind treason being spoken here in the Dragon's own city.

Lanselos is down on top of him before he even knows he's doing it. A knee to the ribs and an elbow to the throat, and he's saying something about seditious talk but he's dimly aware that his body's gone on ahead of him, that maybe this isn't so much about treason as it's about-- _Christ_ , this _fucking bastard_ what's _wrong_ with people, and Gwenore ain't in _anyone's_ bed, who does this bastard think he is to even _think_ about her-- and by the time his mind is starting to clear up, his hand's in this man's hair and the man himself ain't even sensible anymore, and Lanselos had forgotten, somehow, how much blood a good blow to the head can create. The place is silent as death; Lanselos remembers, now, getting a good handful of hair and cracking this man's skull against the concrete floor.

He gets shakily to his feet, his body thrumming with adrenaline despite the fact that he feels calm, so calm. He feels sure he's done the right thing. He calls up the hill for medical transport, and tells the terrified bar girl and the too-loud woman that treasonous talk won't be tolerated. The woman starts sobbing; the bar girl only nods. She's pale, pale, pale. Lanselos is flushed but steady. He drains his beer and leaves.

**

Athyr's furious. Gwen won't even look at him. The man – turns out he's a trader from Roseline, who was running on an expired license anyway – is in the Menw, and he hasn't woken up.

“Jesus, Lanse,” Athyr swears, “You can't ruttin' kill folks just because they don't like me. Ain't how things work, you know that.”

Lanselos shrugs. He's still angry, somehow, though he's calm. “I ain't killed him. They all know better, now, don't they?”

Gwenore says, “Auelon, come on, man. Know better than what? People can say whatever they think, ain't no laws against callin' LeGuin stupid.”

“Wouldn't suggest such a thing,” Athyr says. He sounds tired. Lanselos has noticed that he sounds tired an awful lot lately. “I've got to call you on the carpet like this. You know better. Christ.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

Gwenore's staring at him, now, hard.

“What?”

“You're a fool,” she says, sighing.

Lanse leans forward, “I ain't about to sit here and get' yelled at for defending you.”

Her eyebrows go up, “Defending _me_? Is that right?”

“Both of you,” Lanselos says belatedly. “Ain't gonna--”

But Gwenore cuts him off, “Don't think you're protecting me against whatever it is folks are gonna say. Don't pretend you're some great champion.”

“Like _hell_ am I goin' to sit there and listen to him undermine--”

She holds her hands up, and so he stops. She's gone back to avoiding his eyes. “I don't want to hear any more.”

“You're off duty and confined to quarters until the day after tomorrow,” Athyr's got his head in his hands. “Don't pull a stunt like this again.”

Athyr sits back then, and looks him over. Lanselos manages to hold his gaze, but only barely. The weariness he sees there... they all feel it, all three of them, and he doesn't know why it can't just be easy. Why it can't just be him & Gwen. Or him & Athyr. Or the three of them without all this other pressure, then they might be able to sort themselves out. Or even (the thought falls on him just as relentlessly as the anger did) Lanselos never having come to New Britain, never getting between the two of them, never making them look this worn out and disappointed. He'd let Athyr beat him the way he beat that man from Roseline. He'd give almost anything, if only he could make them happy. He wouldn't care how much he had to suffer on his own.

But then she turns toward the window, and the last of the light catches her face, her hair. Rough and beautiful, unrefined, smelling of sun and gun oil and that simple, soapy smell she leaves in his sheets, most of the time. Christ, but he loves her. Wants to reach for her, pull her to him; and again, Athyr's face alongside hers -- weary, soft-eyed. Disappointed.

Lanselos gets to his feet, “See you in two days.”

He leaves, before either of them can say anything more. And if Athyr comes to his quarters tonight, he'll pour him a drink and tell him everything. And if Gwenore comes to him tonight, he'll draw her close and show her how he loves her, how he respects her. He'll be better than he is. They’ll make him better than he is. They always have. They always will.

**Author's Note:**

> This is written in the "Arthurians in Space" AU that came out of Soujin's lovely brain. It's basically Arthurians in the _Firefly/Serenity_ Verse. This takes place around the time everything starts to fall apart. (These characters come out of RP. Lanse is the only one of these characters that's truly mine. My friends have graciously betaed/allowed me to write their characters.)
> 
> I straight up stole the title from [Sebadoh](http://www.sebadoh.com/) \- Listen to [On Fire](http://youtu.be/jcbmBm5k-dc) [YouTube link].


End file.
